


Complimentary

by tyrannosaurus_rose



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Female Characters, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Female-Centric, Flirting, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Minor Canonical Character(s), Minor Character Death, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 02:37:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4462175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyrannosaurus_rose/pseuds/tyrannosaurus_rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short glimpses into the relationship shared by Tifa and Jessie.  Written for the 2015 FF7 Fanworks Exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Complimentary

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt asked for Tifa and Jessie being bamfs together. I'm not sure this is quite what was meant, but I certainly enjoyed writing it.

WC: 112

“What’s your poison?”

“Huh?”

Tifa smiled, leaning on the bar counter to get a closer look at her new customer.  “Anything to drink?”

“Oh!” the girl blushed.  “Um… I’m just waiting for someone.” 

“Ah.  Boyfriend?”  Drat.  All the cute ones were taken. 

“Er, colleague.”  The brunette seemed to suddenly realize her eyes were just about level with Tifa’s cleavage as the barkeep leaned toward her and quickly raised her eyes to Tifa’s face.  But – no boyfriend!  Sweet! 

“Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do for you,” Tifa said, reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind the girl’s ear.  “A girl can never have too many friends, right?”

 

* * *

 

 

WC: 120

The old train graveyard was Jessie’s favorite place in the city.  She loved to go there and study the trains, mapping their features, sketching blueprints, taking measurements.  She had built a train set that was a perfect scale model of one of the Midgar’s older trains, and it was a huge hit with the kids.  Jessie could talk about trains for hours, and often did. 

Today, Tifa had accompanied her to the graveyard, and Jessie was animatedly explaining the differences between a few of the gutted train car corpses, which lay haphazardly in piles all over the yard.  Although Jessie was pointing and gesturing to parts of the trains they were looking at, Tifa’s eyes never strayed from Jessie’s face. 

 

* * *

 

 

WC: 218

“Spread your legs… a little farther.  Yeah, like that.”  Tifa stood behind Jessie, holding the girl’s hips as she murmured instructions. 

“A-are you sure?”

“Yeah!  That’s perfect.  You need a deep stance for balance, strength, and stability.  Here, let me show you.”  Walking around to face Jessie, Tifa put her hands on her friend’s shoulders and pushed.  Jessie leaned back, but didn’t fall.  “See?  If your feet are too close together, even a little pressure can send you back.” 

“I guess I never realized how difficult all this stuff could be.”

“Aw, you’re doing great!  Now, show me your fists.  Ah, no, ok, so like this is better.  If you wrap your fingers around your thumb like that, you’ll break it on impact.” 

“My _thumb_?”

“No, a nail.  Of course your thumb!  So don’t ever hold it when you go to punch somebody.  Thumb on the _outside_ of your fist.  Show me.” 

Slowly, because Jessie was skittish, Tifa walked her through the basics of hand to hand combat, gently using her own hands and body to guide Jessie’s into position.  They spent the better part of an hour working at it, and by the end of that time, Tifa couldn’t say Jessie’s confidence had improved much… but at least she would never break her thumb throwing a punch. 

 

* * *

 

 

WC: 388

Tifa loved the way Jessie stuck her tongue out a little when she was really concentrating.  It was so cute!  She just _had_ to interrupt.  “Sooo, what’re you working on?” 

“I’m just finishing up soldering the wiring on this board,” Jessie responded.  “Don’t distract me.” 

“I thought you need that spool of wire to solder,” Tifa said, ignoring the request.  She didn’t really understand Jessie’s engineering techno-babble but she did try to pay attention.  And power tools and the other dangerous stuff Jessie worked with, like the soldering iron, were pretty cool. 

“What I’m doing right now is _extra finicky,_ ” Jessie said, not looking up from her project.  She didn’t really need to: Tifa could hear the glare in her voice.  “So I’m using micro-grain solder.”

“Uhh.” What? 

“Grain solder is like… I don’t know, it is what it sounds like.  It’s solder in grain form, you just put a little piece of it… right where you need it…” her explanation trailed off as she delicately brought the iron to the board.  Tifa noticed it had a longer, thinner rod with a finer point than the iron Jessie normally used. 

“Ohh, so that way you don’t get solder everywhere.” 

“Mmhm.  Yeah.”  Jessie finished what she was doing and finally looked up.  “On a circuit board like this one, you have to be really careful where your solder goes, because it’s conductive.  You can accidentally breach channels if your solder gets too messy.” 

Tifa had no idea what that meant, but assumed it had something to do with the physics Jessie had been trying to teach her.  Those sessions went about as well as Tifa’s efforts to teach Jessie to fight, so neither girl could really complain.  “Hence the grain solder,” she said, because that part at least did sort of make sense.  Some kind of contamination issue, right? 

“Exactly, well, micro-grain, in this case.”

“What’s the difference?” 

“Just what it sounds like.  Grain solder is the size of… oh, I don’t know, sea salt, let’s say.  And micro-grain is closer to table salt.  See?”  She held out a tin of the stuff for Tifa to inspect. 

“So how do you get the micro-grain solder to be exactly where you need it, if it’s so small?”

“With tweezers.”

“But –”

“Tifa,” Jessie interrupted.  “Did you need something?”

Tifa just smiled. 

 

* * *

 

 

WC: 230

“Hup!  HIYAH!  … Jessie, what are you cowering for?  You’re acting like I’m going to hit you.”

“You _are_ going to hit me!”

“Only if you don’t block me!”

“Tifa, I don’t think this is working.  I’m really no good at this stuff… can’t we go back to my work station?  I could teach you how to make a light out of a pickle!”

“Or you could learn to protect yourself in case you’re ever attacked, like we agreed,” Tifa reminded her.  She sighed.  “Look, Jessie, I know you don’t like fighting – any more than I like physics or chemistry or any of that science stuff.  Well, I mean, not that I don’t like it, I do like it, I mean, I like that you like it – that’s not the point.  It’s important for you to know how to take care of yourself.”

“Why?”

“ _Why?_   Don’t tell me you can’t think of a single reason why this might be useful!”

“Of course it’s useful.  That’s why you know it.  And when I need protection, you’ll be there, just like the next time you need a bomb, I’ll be there.  All we have to do is stick together, and we’ll be fine.”

Tifa blinked in surprise, but as the meaning of Jessie’s words sank in, her expression melted into a smile.  “Stick together, huh?  Yeah… I think I can handle that.”

 

* * *

 

 

WC: 220

There was a quiet, grassy place outside of Edge on a hill that overlooked some of the ruins of Midgar.  Tifa went there sometimes, when Barret or Ruvie could take the kids and there was no cleaning to do and all her bills at Seventh Heaven were in order.  Sometimes, but not often. 

Years ago, someone had erected a stone monument here.  Tifa couldn’t imagine who had the money or the heart to do such a thing – and then tell no one, for few seemed to even know of the existence of this hillside, and over the years the stone had weathered until the writing on it was barely legible.  Still, when she found this place one day purely by accident, she felt like she could suddenly experience emotions that had been pent up inside her for far too long. 

Anger.  Rage.  Sadness.  Bitter despair.  Love.  Hope.  Desire.  Looking at the monument brought it all back.

There was no list of names, no further respect offered to those who had died on that tragic, brutal day.  No flowers or photos adorned the monument; indeed, there was no sign anyone but Tifa ever visited this place at all.    

Still, sometimes, when she could get away, Tifa came here, and remembered Jessie, and felt at ease. 

_In Loving Memory_

_–_

_Platefall, December 0007_

 


End file.
